Hi. This week, I got the chance to sit down with some impressive students at Lorain County Community College in Ohio. One of them was a woman named Andrea Ashley. Two years ago, Andrea lost her job as an HR analyst. Today, she’s getting certified in the fast-growing field of electronic medical records. Before enrolling at Lorain, Andrea told me she was looking everywhere trying to find a new job. But without a degree, she said that nobody would hire her.

Translation: I’m trolling college campuses, looking for young, indebted people who will work for pizza and beer.

Andrea’s story isn’t unique. I’ve met so many Americans who are out there pounding the pavement looking for work only to discover that they need new skills. And I’ve met a lot of employers who are looking for workers, but can’t find ones with the skills they’re looking for.

Your little #Occupy weenies are pounding the pavement because somebody stole their drums. As you’ve never, you know, worked a day in your life, your inability to differentiate is understandable.

So we should be doing everything we can to put higher education within reach for every American – because at a time when the unemployment rate for Americans with at least a college degree is about half the national average, it’s never been more important. But here’s the thing: it’s also never been more expensive. Students who take out loans to pay for college graduate owing an average of $25,000. For the first time, Americans owe more debt on their student loans than they do on their credit cards. And for many working families, the idea of owing that much money means that higher education is simply out of reach for their children.

Education should be reachable by every interested American, and would be, if the government wouldn’t queer the market. ‘We should be doing everything we can’ is just another one of your content-free rhetorical Scoobie Snacks. But the crucial, overarching problem is your utter lack of economic understanding, Mr. President.

In America, higher education cannot be a luxury. It’s an economic imperative that every family must be able to afford. That’s why next week I’ll be visiting colleges across the country, talking to students about how we can make higher education more affordable – and what’s at stake right now if Congress doesn’t do something about it. You see, if Congress doesn’t act, on July 1st interest rates on some student loans will double. Nearly seven and half million students will end up owing more on their loan payments. That would be a tremendous blow. And it’s completely preventable.

The benefits of all of this academic debt are not clear (h/t Insty). Education is not an economic imperative. Why do you say that? Could you offer some rationale for why, in an era where more is learned on the Internet than ever before, that going to a college campus for the kind of Commie immersion that has made you intellectually useless is somehow desirable?

This issue didn’t come out of nowhere. For some time now, I’ve been calling on Congress to take steps to make higher education more affordable – to prevent these interest rates from doubling, to extend the tuition tax credit that has saved middle-class families millions of dollars, and to double the number of work-study jobs over the next five years.

Oh, do you mean the one featuring your Senate that is on track to break a full three years without passing a budget? That Congress? I suppose, given that you couldn’t lead two nuns in one minute of silent prayer, Mr. President, that you may suppose “For some time now, I’ve been calling on Congress. . .” constitutes leadership.

Instead, over the past few years, Republicans in Congress have voted against new ways to make college more affordable for middle-class families, and voted for huge new tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires – tax cuts that would have to be paid for by cutting things like education and job-training programs that give students new opportunities to work and succeed.

Yeah, class warfare: yeah! Excuse me, I may need a private moment to savor this. Has it ever occurred to you that every U.S. Citizen lives in a state, and that education policy, if the 10th Amendment means jack, should be a state concern? Just askin’, Mr. Constitutional Lecturer Dude.

We cannot just cut our way to prosperity. Making it harder for our young people to afford higher education and earn their degrees is nothing more than cutting our own future off at the knees. Congress needs to keep interest rates on student loans from doubling, and they need to do it now.

Are you sure we can’t cut to prosperity? We certainly haven’t spent our way to prosperity. No, we’ve blown it right out our ‘prosperity’, in fact. How is competition for educational credentials like “cutting our own future off at the knees” exactly? And is amputating at the knee preferable to the amputation at the throat which your spending accomplishes? And should taxpayers fund the likes of J. Taylor Wallace (h/t The Blaze) to produce Sarah Palin head barbecues?. Note “the likes of”. I have no evidence that our talks dollars

This is a question of values. We cannot let America become a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of people struggle to get by. We’ve got to build an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. That’s how the middle class gets stronger. That’s an economy that’s built to last. And I’m not only going to take that case to college campuses next week – I’m going to take it to every part of the country this year. Thanks, and have a great weekend.

“This is a question of values.” Really? You have some, sir? Your words sound so pretty, and are so at odds with, well, your entire record. How do Solydra, Fast & Furious, and Keystone XL, for the first three entries on the mental stack, possibly square with your words? Your record only comes into focus when one assumes you mean the precise opposite of what you say, sir.

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President Caninnibal: “In America, higher education cannot be a luxury.”

Sure it can, President Present. Basic education is not a luxury. Higher education is and need be pursued by those committed to the investment. Rephrased, bureaucrats and their confiscation of others’ wealth/time/life to be redistributed to others are a poor proxy for personal sacrifice. Besides, why interject yet more educational fail wherein college is substituted for high school because high school has diminished so much as to not make students productive at age eighteen? Social advancement has made a college degree “necessary.” How about we correct that flaw first?

President Caninnibal: “… and voted for huge new tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires…”

Actually, they’re for voting for cuts for hundred-thousandaires and ten-thousandaires, too. And some reductions in spending. But, please, do go on with your dog whistle. Oh, wait… please don’t.

Nicely done, Smitty, but the amount of fisking needed here could fill a library.

Adobe_Walls April 21st, 2012 @ 10:23 pm

To think all these years I thought making something more affordable meant making it cost less but instead it merely means making someone else pay for it.
That HR analysts or HR anythings for that matter are having trouble finding jobs should be a good thing.